Limitations in grace note spacing

So, today’s question involves my inability to compress spacing between the grace notes and first beat shown in the attached png. I understand that there is no defined (metric) rhythmic position for the grace notes (thus no rhythmic column dashed lines,) so shifting beat 1 to the left moves the grace notes as well. And also, the rhythmic column handle over the grace notes cannot be moved. So a graphic compression is accomplished by a rightward (positive) column x offset change achieved by moving the notehead handle. All fair enough.
But, in this case, I can only shift the upper staff grace notes slightly to the right, and the middle staff notes not at all, before the effect is to shift the entire beat 1 rhythmic column. Is it possible that the accidentals in the bottom staff are imposing a spacing minimum in the upper two even though that bottom staff is a different instrument?
Thanks in advance!

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Hi @RVSLee, actually you have these possibilities:

A.
just flip the stem of the tied thirds:

CleanShot 2025-01-21 at 02.13.10


B.
Or, leaving the stems up, mitigate the distances just moving the chords to the left instead of the grace notes to the right, as you seemed to have found out:


C.
You certainly can also have independent spacing of grace notes:

Dorico file example:
grace notes spacing.dorico (560.0 KB)

3 Likes

Hi Christian -
Thanks for the advice, and the workarounds certainly work!
RVSL

I would call it a local customisation (override), instead of a workaround: I think it is good that Dorico leaves the grace notes chords vertically aligned per default, otherwise it would look messy, in my opinion.
(P.S. I made also an updated video for the note spacings in my previous post and added a C. method )